The Turnout Race

In my post-mortem on the Cicilline-Doherty race in last week's Phoenix, I noted that while turnout in the First Congressional District race was lower than it was in the last presidential year (2008), the drop-off was not as steep in a handful of key Democratic bastions - Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls.

That could explain, in part, why Congressman Cicilline racked up a far larger margin of victory - 12 points - than the polls predicted.

I neglected to mention in that piece (mea culpa) that the counting wasn't yet final - elections officials still needed to tally provisional ballots and manually count some ballots that didn't register on Election Day because of equipment malfunction.

Those ballots didn't change the outcome in a substantial way; my premise still holds. But I've got some updated numbers. And after looking at them more deeply, I've got some additional observations.

The drop-off in voter turnout - which stood at 9.8 percent last week, before the provisional and manual ballots were counted - was just 3.2 percent in the end. In a blue state, the higher the turnout the better for a Democrat like Cicilline.

The declines in Providence and Pawtucket turnout are negligible, at final count. In Pawtucket, the difference between 2008 and 2012 was just 152 ballots - less than 1 percent. In the larger Providence, it was 821 votes - about 1.7 percent. In comparatively small Central Falls, another Democratic bastion, what looked like a 1 percent jump between 2008 and 2012 last week stands at 7.8 percent now. On election night, I tweeted that the Cicilline camp was hoping a lively mayor's race in Central Falls would work to its advantage. Looks like it did.

Another important urban center for Cicilline was Newport. Here, the campaign didn't fare as well, with turnout dropping 6.4 percent from 2008.

Whatever the turnout, a look at the Cicilline v. Doherty matchup precinct-by-precinct confirms what seemed clear on election night: the urban, Democratic base came home for Cicilline in a big way. His campaign reports that it lost no precincts in Providence or Woonsocket, just one each in Newport, Pawtucket, and East Providence, and three in North Providence.

For Doherty, the turnout picture was mixed. In his hometown of Cumberland, which he won 56 percent to 39 percent, turnout was up 1.5 percent from 2008 - a boost, but not as large as he might have hoped. In Portsmouth, which Doherty won 52 to 41 percent, turnout was down 2.8 percent.

In three other suburban communities critical to Doherty's campaign - Lincoln, Smithfield, and North Smithfield - turnout was up (in one case) or down (in two) only slightly. If the suburbs did not look fondly on Cicilline - and they did not, if the vote totals are any indication - there was no great swell in turnout to overcome the incumbent's urban base.